Since I first experimented with the federated search functionality of Search Server Express 2008, I have been patiently waiting for the update that would add the enhanced search functionality to MOSS 2007. (Actually given the breadth of this update I'm almost inclined to call this SharePoint Service Pack 1.5)

In a previous job I worked on a distributed SharePoint design that included multiple SharePoint farms that are geographically dispersed. At the time the enterprise search solution was to use Search Server Express 2008 to be able to do a federated search across all the farms. The two downsides to this approach are that firstly all the farms must be configured for Kerberos authentication and secondly that we need to run another system to host the Search Server Express 2008. We knew at the time that the enhanced search functionality would be bolted into MOSS2007 at some later time, we just didn't know when.

So this week the infrastructure update for WSS 3.0 and MOSS 2007 has been released!

What is in the update?

There are 4 broad categories of updates included in this release

1. Enhanced search functionality
2. Content deployment fixes
3. Project Server fixes
4. Performance fixes especially for large scale or hosting environments
5. Kerberos authentication for the SSP infrastructure

The enhanced search functionality has been already well documented in Search Server Express 2008 that has been out for some time. The two highlights for me are the enhanced search administration dashboard and federated search.

Note that my previous point regarding Kerberos authentication for federated search across multiple SharePoint farms is still true. The reason behind this is that NTLM cannot pass credentials across multiple 'hops' or through to backend systems. If you haven't already implemented Kerberos authentication you want to consider doing that as it is more secure than NTLM and has a lower performance impact on the domain controllers that are authenticating for the SharePoint servers. Also you can now configure the SSP for Kerberos authentication.

The content deployment fixes are largely what was released as a rollup hotfix a couple of weeks ago, however these have now been included in the infrastructure update. The major fixes for content deployment include:

• Unpublished pages do not get unpublished on the destination during an incremental update.
• Document "Title" field does not get deployed by incremental deployment in some cases during an incremental update.
• Incremental import can fail if a feature with a custom content type has been reactivated on the destination.
• Removing a User from a group does not propagate to the destination during incremental deployment.
• Content Deployment can time out incorrectly on large deployment jobs.
• Custom master page settings on the source are not propagated to the destination during deployment.

The update also contains a number of fixes for known issues in Project Server including improvements in performance. This update applies to the Project Professional 2007 client only.

The main points of the update are:

• A large number of fixes relating to cost resources
• Fixes for custom field stability
• Project Server local cache resiliency
• Task predecessor links are not preserved when work is imported into Excel.

The other updates are performance updates. These have been based on problems with environments that include large databases or large numbers of host header site collections. The main updates in this category include:-

• Scalability and performance improvements to support Search incremental crawl.
• Stability improvements when upgrading or patching a farm with a large number of host-header named site collections.
• Improvements in the time it takes to patch and upgrade Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 sites.
• Change logs for all databases

To support these updates there have been some new stsadm operations and some changes to existing stsadm operations. The new operations include:-

• Trimauditlog - Lets an administrator delete audit entries older than a certain date.

Operations with updates include:-

• Addcontentdb – The following parameters have been added: assignnewdatabaseid; clearchangelog;
• DeleteContentDB – updated behaviour related to change log retention after detaching a content database
• Restore – preservechangelog optional parameter added
• Osearch – updated behaviour related to change log retention after attaching a content database. (For MOSS)
• Spsearch – updated behaviour related to change log retention after attaching a content database. (For WSS)

Here are the links to the infrastructure updates:

• WSS 3.0
  • Download 32bit
  • Download 64bit
  • KB953749 Article on list of fixes
• MOSS 2007
  • Download 32bit
  • Download 64bit
  • KB952750 Article on list of fixes
• Project Server 2007
  • Download Project Professional 2007 Client update
  • KB953751 Article on list of fixes

Installation

For installation the usual MOSS patching steps apply. There are some known issues so please read the KB articles very carefully before you proceed.

1. Backup everything
2. Install the WSS 3.0 update
3. Cancel the SharePoint Configuration wizard if it runs.
4. Install the MOSS 2007 update
5. Run the SharePoint Configuration wizard if it runs.
6. After SharePoint is running, reboot (not required just my best practice)

References and other related Microsoft blog posts on the infrastructure update:-

SharePoint ITPro Documentation blog
SharePoint team blog
SharePoint Search Blog (includes 2 screenshots related to the new search features)
Microsoft Enterprise Content Management (ECM) Team Blog

I hope you enjoy the new features (and have a painless update)!

Gavin Adams
Senior Consultant
Synergy Corporate Technologies